In a safety-related application, for example, on board a motor vehicle, a control task is normally processed with the aid of a processing system, which is configured exclusively to carry out static processes. Which processes and how many processes run on the processing system is usually decided at the point in time programs are prepared, which implement the processes. In addition, attention is usually paid to the fact that software of different processes are not used repeatedly. This means that no functionality is provided in repeatedly used libraries, for example. In this way, it may be ensured that the processes are carried out separately from one another and in a preferably fail-safe manner. In particular, a process may be prevented from presenting problems for another process. Such a processing system normally includes a real-time operating system such as OSEK-OS.
However, such a static system is poorly suited for also supporting a functionality of a third-party provider. A processing system may therefore be used, which is configured to dynamically carry out processes, and which includes an operating system such as, for example, Linux. The problem with this may be, however, that one process adversely affects another process or many processes in that it may require so much processing capacity that an important process cannot be reliably carried out.
An object of the present invention is to provide a technique for monitoring a processing system, which provides an improved protection from processes that are unexpectedly carried out. Example embodiments of the present invention are described herein.